TK'd be awesome with percentages, don't know what you're talking about. It wouldn't be that hard to squeeze something like: king, 3 priests, a bunch of random core, 6 scorpions and 5 screaming skull catapults with skulls of the foe into a 2250 point list.

I like my rumours with a fair bit of salt though, so thanks for the hint!

Every time I see someone terrified of the idea of perhaps having to use a unit of 25 Spearmen, it makes me really hope that the next edition forces people to spend more on their core units

I could not agree more!

Bring on the minimum 25% core!

Minimum core increases won't bring blocks of spearmen with it. It will bring DE nastiness, bret knights, Emp knights, marauder horsemen, beast chariots, skinks, horrors/PBs, TK chariots, fanatics and every other core nasty under the sun.

People can already field all of that in piles. They just don't and that should tell you something.

Combined with other pro-infantry rules, you never know. Either way, as core is usually taken at a minimum in powergaming lists, being forced to take more means that less of the other special toys won't be taken. I'd rather face another 10 Crossbowmen than the equivalent amount of Shades for example, not quite sure why anyone would be concerned by more Marauder Horsemen/Beast Chariots/Empire Knights/Night Goblins with Fanatics though At least High Elves, Vampires, Daemons to name a few will be forced to bring a good few hundred points of blocks (Daemon and Vampire players may want to go buy a few more boxes of Ghouls then )...

*Looks at wood elf army book, confirms that EG haven't stopped sucking over night, sighs*

Right now I can spend 120 pts on core (3x10 marauders) and have the remainder for specials and rares. I'm sure there are armies that can go just as cheap.

If they reinstituted the percentages while leaving the core/special/rare restrictions it would go a long way to making things better. Is it perfect? No.

Copied from warseer-

I'd like to point out that IF we get a 25 % on characters game size may increase too. However I'll play along and do 2250 characters.

WoC

Gateway spam
Sorceror Lord, level 4, disc, mark of Tzeentch, golden eye of Tzeentch, enchanted shield, book of secrets, spell familiar 390
Sorceror, level 2, barded steed, infernal puppet, 171
561

Level 2 Sorc spam
Sorceror, level 2 MoT, disc of Tzeentch, power familiar, book of secrets 210
Sorceror, level 2, infernal puppet, spell familiar, barded warhorse 186
Sorcerer, level 2, unmarked, blood of tzeentch, enchanted shield 165
561

Sorc's with BSB
Sorceror, level 2 MoT, disc of Tzeentch, power familiar, book of secrets 210
Sorceror, level 2, infernal puppet, spell familiar, barded warhorse 170
Exalted hero, BSB, fury of the blood god, barded warhorse, shield 182
562

Flying chaos lord
Chaos lord, manticore, chaos demon sword, collar of khorne, shield, MoT, blood curdling roar
550

Chaos lord with Scroll caddy
Chaos lord, chaos demon sword, collar of khorne, shield, MoT, blood curdling roar, barded warhorse 366
Chaos sorc, 2 scrolls 135
501

Chaos lord with BSB
Chaos lord, chaos demon sword, collar of khorne, shield, MoT, blood curdling roar, barded warhorse 366
Exalted hero, BSB, fury of the blood god, barded warhorse, shield 182
548

Throgg crush
Throgg 175
Exalted hero, helm of many eyes, enchanted shield, rending blade, favour of the gods, barded warhorse 176
Sorceror, level 2 MoT, disc of Tzeentch, power familiar, book of secrets/dispell scroll 210
561

etc etc, I'm sure you good folks can find better builds

personally I have no problems with 25 % as it stops some of the craziness and if you really want to fiel;d a dragon you cna up the points. yes you wont have points left for other characetrs but no bad thing IMO

As a HE player I'd love to be able to bring bigger/more core blocks to the table but a) the army book is specifically set up for you to bring more special and rare and b) our core is neither good enough or cheap enough to warrant spending more points on it at present.

Personally I've never had a problem with getting my money's worth out of a big block of ~25 Spearmen, but then I've actually tried and stuck with it

And what gets better results is a unit of stubborn troops, or a unit of troops that can actually kill the enemy. For HEs its not really that spearman blocks suck hard, its that even with these restrictions we'll STILL see aboms, hydras, beastmen monsters, thirsters and what have you but the only answer will be shooting, you wont actually be able to take them in combat or at least but a few wounds on them or hold your ground while you counter charge.

Come on Daniel, you know the HE book isnt made for the core, we're just not DEs!

25% core....I'm looking at 25% RARE!

3 Hyrdas or 2 Hydras AND 2 BT's! Or just 16 Flamers in 3 units.

90 points for Beastmen.

I have my own personal suspicions that may be why HE are rumoured to be in the 8th Edition starter box. It's currently the only army book with a different hero/core/special/rare configuration and if released as part of the box set it may be getting a revised book to address that issue. I could be wrong, but it's just a hunch I have anyway.

Cheers, Gary

*shrug* If people can't be bothered to even try and make it work, then it aint gonna work. I'll just be sitting in the corner with my infantry blocks while everyone else can panic over the impending sky of falling

With your fear causing, unbreakable blocks that get back up like necrons on steroids? ;p

I normally run two blocks of 40 Tomb king spearmen at 2k, the blocks do work.

Well I've drawn up lists before trying to go predominantly Core but I end up stopping as I just reach a point where I think that a) it's not going to kill anything unless I get really lucky (and I don't seem to be a lucky WFB player...) and b) I'm going to end up spending more on kitting out characters to try and make up for the fact that the Core won't do anything.

I made a he list with 1k core and it was quote playable but mainly relied on a combat character in each spearmen block.

Cheers

These rumors just don't strike me right. I haven't thought enough about them to either love or hate them, it's just that they smack of guessing to me rather than something substantial. Clues I'm looking at that lead me to this conclusion:

#1 lack of specific language. These rumors are all very vague.

#2 consistency with known wish listing. Especially wrapping around and some of the other items have been commonly wish-listed items... smacks of truth being created out of repitition.

#3 inconsistent with GW trends of simplification and moving forward with new rules or rethinking of older rules, and generally not going back to older core mechanics. Of course there are examples of GW reviving previously abandoned rules but for the core rules that drive major facets of the game, this is rarely the case. A return to percentages simply isn't clever enough. It kind of reminds me of how people claiming to have conversations with spirits and aliens can only report very mundane knowledge and never anything worth knowing like solutions for advanced mathematics or the location of lost artifacts. People guessing at creations tend to be a lot less imaginative than the creators themselves and this seems to be the case with these rumors too.

Summary: I wouldn't get all hot and bothered about these rumors. Nothing in any of the 8th edition rumors that I've read seems terribly consistent or credible. That is not to say that maybe someone hasn't guessed right. Not even the box set armies are consistently or credibly rumored.

But here is one prediction I'll make and I'll eat a hat or drink a bottle of hot sauce or something if I'm proven wrong: Not only will TK not be in the next starter box, they will never, ever be in any future edition's starter box. Never. Get over it.

Nope, Bretts get an extra character slot.

I'm gonna have to agree on the scepticism- though there's always a chance.

The percentage thing, GW thinks it's customers can barely handle simple maths like -1 modifiers and 0-1 unit choices (it seems 40k players can't). Working out percentages, I don't think so.

Lapping around, a wishlist ask for 6th Ed? How does this speed up the game?

Faster assaults, possible Epic style continue fighting rounds until one side loses? The most plausible of the lot, though I personally thing a well-matched fight should take several turns whilst the battle rages around it, and units move in to flank, etc. If the combat is always over in the player turn it starts a huge chunk of tactics should as baiting, tarpitting, counter-charging, flanking become redundant- and it becomes even more about who's Death Star is bigger and hits harder first.

I don't find any of these rumours appealing. I prefer the rumours of Core units mattering, and if done well, objective based missions- oh, I guess I like the Magic overhaul idea, it needs a reboot.

Armybooks trump basic rules. If percentages do come back, it will be in combination with current rules - in a typical 2000 point game you'll need a minimum of three units of core per your army book. Now the new rules may mandate that the army core must ALSO meet a percentage requirement but it absolutely will not be a pure percentage-based army selection.

I would personally favor almost any rules that helped mitigate the current monster-hammer & hero-hammer climate we currently live in!

Of course if they brought % back it would have to work in tandem with the current 0-X restrictions from army books.

And the idea to revise the HE army book for 8th edition release is 100% dumb, unless the primary purpose is to get rid of the army wide ASF gimmick and actually write a properly balanced army book.

If GW feels the % allocation rule would gimp the current high elves more than other races, they can add an extra rule allow high elves to allocate 5-10% of their core requirement to another slot, or something similar.

Because strong characters and monsters do require very little in the way of tactical thinking. A unit of light or medium infantry will have to be placed with some forethought, will have to maneouver carefully and very probably will need some support. While of course not every character can break a ranked up unit on his own - and that is a very good thing -, they are in general much more point and click.



Yes, of course.



I think you do not want to understand what we are saying. This statement is obviously pure exaggeration. It's cool to have a unit of light cavalry or a monster or a brace of cannon or an inspiring leader. It's not cool to have lots of unviable or subpar choices in your AB.

What did you expect? The release date is still half a year away so it is only natural that they are vague. Looking at more recent releases for both major systems, I am surprised that we get anything at this time of the year already.



Neither would I. This is simply too early to know anything definite.

Even with the rumors considered on percentages I think we should assume Lord/Hero/Core/Special/Rare would be staying in. The only reason I say that is because I KNOW that they have been working on the rules for 8th edition since at least last summer, and in my opinion if they planned on overwriting the Core/Special/Rare system, they wouldn't have included the little section before the army list about it in the Beastmen and Skaven army books, even for the sake of cohesion with the other books, because the idea with this edition is to create changes within the game that have as little effect on the army books as possible.

So I think most likely we are going to be looking at Lord/Hero/Core/Special/Rare ALONG WITH the percentage requirements/limits in certain areas, like the aforementioned 25% character limit, or the 40% minimum spent in core. Honestly my friends and I have been testing this for a week now since the rumor came up, and it brings a HUGE swing back towards balancing the game.

It's nice to know that if facing vampire or daemons if they DO have that crazy spamming/killy vampire lord, or bloodthirster, they are going to have little if anything aside from that character wise. I still forsee daemons and DE still kicking some serious butt due to the strength for point cost of units like flamers, flesh hounds, and hydras but it won't be near as bad, and now we would have to see some hefty units of core (900 points worth of it at 2250) so it would pull some points away from those specials and rares. It also brings a lot of light on hero choices as well.

Seriously, if you have some concerns try playtesting a little with a 25% limit on characters, and 40% minimum on core, really. The naysayers are the ones that loved their bloodthirsters+siren heralds, slann priests+engines, vampires+friends, dragons, and magic domination absolutely wrecking armies in small-ish (IE below 2500) point limit games that don't often have means of dealing with such threats at said points limits. Part of the reason Daemons, Dark Elves, Vampires, and to some extent Lizardmen are dominating as they are right now is because of their characters and magic item choices (with exceptions of course).

What it all boils down to is that this is a game of armies VS armies.

From Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition of an army is " a large organized body of armed personnel trained for war especially on land". Alright, now see that little thing in the bottom left corner on the front of your force's book; underneath Warhammer where it says, yes that's right, "ARMIES"? We all play our miniatures with rules out of "army" books, not "my big bad uber character of awesome and his couple of friends" books.

Anything that pulls to game towards having more focus on the bulk of an army and less on the characters is a GREAT change to me. Anyone who wants to leave the game because of the rumored percentage change because you can no longer min/max core and you can't have your uber lords, please feel free. You are the ones currently ruining the game for me anyhow.



-v

They're not going to start putting army selection rules into the core rulebook. The percentage rumour is hogwash if you ask me.

Ratarsed

The days of pure %'s and no slots weren't so great either, the combination might work pretty fine.

All the other rumours, well that magic is going to change, that should be no surprise. But on the one hand you are hearing rumours about magic getting way stronger / more devastating and on the other hand it is getting toned down. What will be true?

I do expect the change from 7th to 8th to be a big one, how big, you can only tell when the book comes out.


BTW: High Elves and Skaven are supposed to be in the box...